Cycling stars on way to Cumbria

TOUR de France winner Geraint Thomas and Giro d’Italia victor Chris Froome will ride together in the OVO Energy Tour of Britain cycle race for the first time since 2009, Team Sky announced this week.

The British pair, who were first and third in last month’s Tour de France, will both be on the start line of Britain’s biggest annual sporting event in Pembrey Country Park, Carmarthenshire, on Sunday, 2nd September.

The race will come through Cumbria on 6th and 7th September. Stage five, from Cockermouth to Whinlatter, and part of the time team trial, will be held on 6th, and the following day will see riders on stage six, covering Barrow to Whinlatter.

Competitors will have to tackle the 525-metre climb at Whinlatter three times over two stages. Welshman Thomas said: “As soon as I’d finished the Tour (de France) I knew I wanted to ride the Tour of Britain and race on home roads.

“It starts in Wales, which will be special, and then I get to go and race across the whole of the UK. I can’t wait.”

Thomas is a regular at the Tour of Britain, having ridden it eight times since his debut with a Great British national team in 2005.

Froome’s two participations to date came in 2007 and 2009. He was 31st overall in the former, while two years later (when he lined up alongside Thomas as part of the Barloworld-Bianchi team) he finished 50th.

Since then he has established himself as the leading Grand Tour rider of his generation, having won four Tours de France.